I just received an email from a recent student who wrote:

“I did your Causative Communication online training to learn how to handle difficult conversations. The weirdest thing happened. I’ve stopped having difficult conversations!!!  I haven’t had ANY since the training!”

Then she wrote two words that I’m very used to seeing in my inbox:

“It’s magic.”

Magic is when you produce a spectacular, even impossible, effect with very little effort, done so swiftly it’s invisible how you did it.

In difficult conversations, most people are used to expending a TREMENDOUS amount of effort and getting a mediocre or frustrating result.  So, what she’s describing IS magic.

The other word you see in her email above is one I’ve also gotten used to seeing and hearing from our students and clients:

Weird.

I hear this word a lot. At one point I joked I was going to call it Weird Communication, but I knew that unless someone’s done the training, they wouldn’t understand.

Let me explain why it’s weird.

I have another client who recently put all of our online training into their corporate catalog to make it available to 100,000 employees. She sat in to observe our first three training sessions to make sure they were going well.  A lot was at risk for her if they weren’t.

After the first session she said,

“That was weird. They were all paying attention.  That’s really weird for 6 hours of virtual training that they would pay attention the whole time.  What was even weirder was I was planning to multitask as I was listening and I couldn’t multitask.  I’m the world’s busiest multitasker and I just couldn’t do it. I found myself riveted and being attentive the whole time. That was really weird.”

After the second session she said,

“That was so weird.  I can’t believe how much people change in such a short period of time. It’s like they blossom before your eyes. They become compelling. You start to really LIKE them WAY more.  That’s weird to watch how they are at the beginning and how they are at the end, so different.”

After the third session she said,

“I know I keep saying the word “weird”, but it really IS weird. I’m watching these people transform in these workshops and you do it so quickly and so consistently, that’s so weird.”

Then I overheard her telling her boss, “These training programs are so good, they’re weird.”

She’s not the only one who’s used this word. I hear it often.  Almost as often as I hear the word magic.

When some says something is weird, they mean it’s really unexpected.  They mean it’s hard to believe.

I understand.  I know the world we live in. I know it well.

It’s a world where GREAT communication is weird. A world where creating a spectacular effect with very little effort is weird. Where a “normal person” being able to create consistent magic is weird.  Where having a great teacher and learning how to do it in such a short time is really weird.

It’s weird to suddenly have everything going exactly the way that you’d like.

It’s weird to suddenly have a great relationship with someone that you haven’t been getting along with.

It’s weird to suddenly be able to influence an entire organization.

It’s weird to tell your child to go to bed once and have them do it cheerfully and willingly.

It’s weird to present an idea and have it immediately accepted.

It’s weird to be alone in a room talking to a virtual audience that’s far away and be able to feel their energy coming back to you and know they are swept away and totally with you even though you can’t see them.

Great communication IS magic. Creating magic is weird.  Learning how to create magic is weird.  They’re all spectacular.  They’re all hard to believe.

Want to hear something really weird?  I looked up the derivation of the word weird (where it came from) and, get this, the word originally meant the power to control your fate or destiny.

That’s precisely what being CAUSATIVE is all about.  That’s precisely the PURPOSE of Causative Communication.

So, I guess in today’s world – that’s weird!

I personally don’t WANT to live in a world where great communication is weird.  I want to live in a world where BAD or frustrating communication is weird.  Where argument, misunderstanding, conflict, hostility, crushing disappointment, bitterness, not feeling heard, anxiety and fear are weird. 

That’s WHY I’ve chosen this path.  To help the world around me gain the REAL abilities needed to make magic happen.

I was grinning reading the email above.  Nothing makes me happier than to know someone came to me to learn how to handle difficult conversations (of which she had many prior to the training) only to find that, MAGICALLY, after the training she doesn’t have any.

This is what I have to say to her:

“Welcome to this new weird world. It’s so GOOD, it’s weird.  You have a magic wand in your hand called new communication ability.  I know you’re using it to make the world a better place and we are all grateful for it.  Continue on!”

Be the cause!